To say the least I was excited about this feature, and it represents another breakthrough for Meade in astronomical telescope design for amateur astronomers of any level.Īnother feature worth mentioning is the "Astronomer Inside".
It permits the scope to be setup, turned on, and with the use of its internal ECLIPSE CCD camera and on board GPS, the scope will level itself and find north, something Meade calls Level North Technology or LNT, and alight itself to the night sky with out ANY user intervention. The most important feature of the ETX-LS however is the LightSwitch Technology. I'll go into that at a later time, since I want to focus this post on just physical characteristics and goto capability. It is said to thus perform optically on par with the way more expensive Ritchey-Chretian or RC optical design. ACF is designed by Meade to enhance the scopes optical performance by improving the sharpness of the image and flatness of the field of view. Mine also has the optional ACF (Advance Coma Free) optics with UHTC coatings (Ultra High Transmission Coatings). The Meade ETX-LS is a 6" Schmidt Cassegrain Optic. For those of you that may not be familiar with the Meade ETX-LS, and why it’s really another breakthrough from Meade Telescopes for the astronomical world, let me highlight its main features. This part one will focus on the scopes physical characteristics, such as weight, its fit and finish, overall operation, and my initial night out to test the goto capabilities. This is part one of a detailed review of the Meade ETX-LS. Patiently waiting for a break in the weather, permitted me to review the Autostar Suite and the manual, yes, I actually read the manual, since this is my first computerized, fully goto telescope. My scope had arrived, and of course, right on cue, the cold weather and clouds. I was excited to see the 2 brown cartons at my door last week, I knew it was the Meade ETX-LS.